


Johnny and Pals Ride The Bus

by meependa (Hawkbringer)



Category: Invader Zim, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, VASQUEZ Jhonen - Works
Genre: A Very Possibly Supernatural Box of Chickens, Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Black Comedy, Brief mention of ZADR, Comedy, Crack, Crack Crossover, Dynamite, Guns, Improbable Amounts of Weapons, OOC, Other, Temporary Character Death, Threats, Threats of Violence, Violence, hearing loss, multi-fandom crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-23 05:19:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17074151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkbringer/pseuds/meependa
Summary: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and his assorted brethren from various Jhonen Vasquez works have been abandoned by their creator. Or at least they feel that way. So they take to their local public transportation to storm The Creator's place of residence and interrogate him. Violently. With dynamite.





	1. Tonight, we ride... the bus! In hell!

**Author's Note:**

> Multi-fandom crossover fic I wrote in late 2007, during 7th grade. This one holds up pretty well despite being written over 10 years ago. Characters are certainly OOC, since I didn't actually experience half of the works I reference in this piece, and I now fear the rabbit hole that is the extremely dark Jhonen-verse, so I'm not going back in to check. 
> 
> Basic premise of 'the characters meet their creator IRL' with lots of Jhonen-style outrageous comedy and ridiculously-extreme violence stirred in. (Internet points to anyone who finds the Jimmy Neutron Movie reference.)
> 
> I present this and my other middle-school-era fics, as-is, with minimal editing, so please enjoy the sour tang of vintage, well-preserved, early-teen writing style. Feel free to cringe and wince in appropriate amounts.

Johnny sat tensely, his hands jittering on his knees as he fought to keep Mr. Eff and Nailbunny from killing each other, and himself in the process. And Nailbunny was usually such a pacifist! It must be because of this trip; how had Devi ever convinced him to go? Oh, yeah... now he remembered. He shot a sheepish glance her way, and did not find her eyes.

Said notorious mercenary was busy speaking to a somewhat younger man with glasses who had a _huge_ head. I mean, seriously, how could he even hold that thing up? Nny asked himself, looking over the scene. There seemed to be a poorly-disguised alien huddled back-to-back behind the big-headed youth, glaring jealously back over his shoulder at the bespectacled teen from time to time. Nny whistled under his breath. Whoo-wee! There were some weird characters on the bus today!

Johnny nodded his head to that comment, nodding to nobody. Nailbunny, his homicidal conscience, and Mr. Eff all resided in his head. 

***

Another big-headed progeny of Jhonen Vasquez's was also riding the bus. Holding his precious box of live chickens to his chest, Happy Noodle Boy was perhaps the sketchiest character there. Literally. The sheer stick-figureness of him, his large head and improbably detailed eyes, hands, and feet betrayed the fact that he, like all the others on this bus today, (except the driver; that's another story) were cartoon characters. 

“Oh, the shame! To be abandoned by one's creator at the peak of life! I was really getting somewhere!” Wobbly-Headed Bob, (with so very disproportionate a head, he could have been the invader's cousin,) voiced their common woes, and everyone hung their heads in shame. An alien invader's arm snaked around a boy's thin shoulders as his body shook with sobs.

All of a sudden, the bus driver (who had seemed oblivious of their existence this whole time) slammed on the brakes, pulled that handle-thingy that opened the doors, and called, “Jhonen Vasquez residence! Jhonen Vasquez, anybody?”

One by one, every character raised their head, and with a demented smile on each and every one's face, they filed out the door of Public Assistance Carbonated Energy (PACE) bus #90. They stood in a line of greatly varying heights as a melodramatic cloud of dust was kicked up by the bus speeding away. Zim the Invader reached inside the cloaked homicidal maniac's cloak, and, quite by accident, discovered a large bundle of dynamite with a match tied to the end. Both he and the homicidal human grinned evilly as Zim reached his lithe arms around the human and hissed the match up the other's arm. He lit the wire and threw it in one fluid motion, so as to make the door of the dry-wood house explode. It did just that, with much spectacle. Zim and the others ooohed and aaaahed at the sight. Then they climbed over the wreckage and entered the unsuspecting human's house. 

***

The human in question, Jhonen Vasquez himself, sat spindle-leggedly at his desk of doom, all twisted up in something his personal psychologist called a 'self-invigoration' pose. And he certainly needed it! Oh, the horrors that were flowing out of his pen today! Evey last one of them was a nasty, spickly-nosed, horrid degradation of humanity! Man, he loved days like this!

That, of course, was when the door exploded.

Jhonen let out a shriek that would shame a teenage girl, clambering all over his and a few other assorted limbs that were strewn about his workplace. After the smoke cleared and Zim lowered his gun (held out melodramatically for appearances), the silhouette of many characters of greatly varying heights imposingly filled the doorway, which was the only immediate source of light. 

Vasquez held a hand to his face, coughing at the dust, and whispered, “Who are you?..... _What_ are you?” was more plainly stated afterward. 

The invader rolled his big, red eyes, free of his disguise now (his INGENOUS concealment of his identity would only confuse the simple-minded human before him,) and with his gun on his hip in a pose that greatly endeared him to the big-headed human on his left, he opened his mouth to answer.

“What _are_ you!?” the Creator shrieked again, cutting the alien off. Crimson eyes narrowed in annoyance, and the Dib took a step back. 

“We are-” the invader attempted to answer before being cut off again.

“Who are _you_?” 

“We are-”

“Woo'r'yoo?” JV spat out in one syllable again.

“We **are** -” (the Invader was by now grinding his back teeth; there was a 10 foot empty circle around him)

“Woo'r'you?”

“Shut up human! We have come to bring you **doom!** ” Zim raised his 3-fingered hands in triumph and cackled as lightning flashed outside. Jhonen gasped, then lowered his hand from his face, exposing a frown. “No, seriously, who the hell are you?”

Zim let out a frustrated growl and/or hiss, depending on how near you were to him, and took a step forward. That took him out of the doorway, where he had until now, stood silhouetted, and his features came clear. The rest of the gang followed after him, their features also becoming clearer, and with every one, Jhonen's eyes grew wider and his jaw fell lower until it may as well have hit the floor.

The invader's own eyes widened at the pitiful but amusing human, then narrowed as his self-satisfied smile widened into a twisted and demented grin. He began to laugh as the Creator began to twitch and moan, letting out occasional shrieks. 

Dib's face had lit up and he too was oohing and ahhing with interest, pointing at the invader and grinning madly at the character next to him, which happened to be Devi. She rolled her eyes and unsheathed a gun. That shut the Dib up. She ignored him and moved in for the kill. Her look and the gun left Dib's face blanched white, and with a substantial bit of fear still left on his visage, he hefted his own knife (which for some reason, had passed security at the bus depot,) and also moved in, closing the circle of dark-faced characters making the Jhonen-Creator scream.

**TO BE CONTIUUUUUED!!**


	2. In this universe, not even No Homo can protect you from THE GAY!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently, I felt like throwing in a ZADR make-out. So that's a thing that happens in this one. And I make this alternative-universe-version of JV admit he approves of it! "Enemies under duress and isolated having more in common than with their higher-ups in the chain of command" rationale and all. I was clearly in wish-fulfillment mode when I wrote this. Damn, is it sappy.

....And scream and scream and scream. And scream. It got very annoying after 5 straight minutes of screaming. All they wanted him to do was _shut up!_ Wobbly-Headed Bob's patience cracked first and he glanced furtively at the characters around him, not easy to do with such huge eyes. But everyone got the message, lowering and re-sheathing all guns and daggers, waiting for Bob to count. He did. “5...2...1...” 

_“SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!”_ every character in the house screamed at the Creator. He shut the hell up pretty fast. 

Nny sighed. “Okay, human... you've caused us enough pain. Explain yourself!” He poked Jhonen's inexplicably bleeding head with a gloved finger. 

“I.. uh.. I've... uh.. been... busy?” 

“Haven't we all?” huffed Devi. 

“Yeah... that's not so great an excuse....” muttered Nny, flipping out and fingering his knives fondly. (Notice the plural of 'knives'. And the alliteration! I'm proud of that one.)

In the background, Dib and Zim explored each other's back teeth with their tongues, ramping up for quite the interesting dance, when they both felt Jhonen's eyes on them. Dib looked away and pulled back first, his swollen lips still puckered. He sighed, brushing his fingers around Zim's tongue before the alien snatched it back into his mouth. Zim sucked at it a bit, missing the feeling of the hot, sticky tongue, but also felt the Creator's eyes and turned to him, hands still gripping the boy's shoulders. 

“Well? What about you?” asked the Creator, once he had their attention. He had long ago gotten used to the idea of a Zim and Dib romance. (Yay for alternate universes! Now we can all get along!)

“Huh? What? Don't get it...” the boys muttered to themselves, eyebrows raised, eyes flicking between themselves and the Creator. 

Zim scratched his head with one eye closed, then more vigorously as he reached his lekku* (incorrectly termed antennae by the human), his other eye closing and tongue poking out. Dib, though also entranced by the spectacle, raised a hand to lower Zim's, murmuring to him, “C'mon, Zimmy.... there's company...” but not before sending the alien into a euphoric shock by stroking the forbidden lekku. The alien's head spasmed against his hand, then settled. Zim opened one eye and stuck out his tongue further at the smelly human. Getting the mental picture, Dib sighed in something bordering nostalgia. Some things never change.

The Creator-human was still looking at them, expecting a better answer. Dib tilted his head toward him, gesturing with his eyebrows. He wanted Zim to say it.  
“Hmm? Oh... we just thought us making out would be sufficient explanation as to our 'busyness'.” Zim went as far as to use air quotes, hands settling again over Dib's shoulders and behind his head. The human grinned like a Cheshire cat, evilly and expectant. “Now, if you'll excuse us...”

The rest of the characters turned away, yet Nny watched dumbfounded as legs and lekku rose, mouths smashed together, digging into flesh with their hands, into places he never even _thought_ of going. (Horny bastards. ;p) 

Devi didn't even have to look back. She placed a hand in front of Johnny, obstructing his view, and when he thoughtlessly tried to move it, she smacked him. Pretty damn hard. It made the others wince. Johnny grinned more sheepishly than ever, raising his eyes like a caught child. She kept her gaze on the ceiling for a few moments, but her face, her mouth, tilted up ever so lightly, and Johnny knew he was forgiven. He sighed in relief, turning to the Creator for support, still sheepishly grinning. 

Jhonen stirred on the floor, looked over the pair of unlikely intimate friends, both heading rapidly for third base, and stuttered his approval. “Well.. well, yeah,... that is... (wipes at hair)... pretty hot, 'n... 'n-n.. STUFF!!” He pointed his finger at the ceiling, eyes screwed up, face burning. “I KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!” 

Everyone just stares at him. Devi thinks rather loudly, _suuuurre you do._ The others jump on the same train of thought. 

_Well, that makes one of us._

_Hey, he knows what he's talking about! Lucky..._

_Mmmm... mmm.. good! Hand, there, yes, good..._ (They're still making out, you know.)

***

Jhonen subconsciously hears their thoughts and turns to the horny xeno pair. “Ya know...." All eyes turn to him, "I never meant for them to be together... but, it looks good on them. I guess.” He goes back to rubbing his hair self-consciously. The characters all nod and agree amiably, totally forgetting their previous goal. Johnny even sat down on the floor next to the guy he was supposed to be threatening, and this is what finally pulls Zim's hand from the other's pants.

“Aaahhhh!! You have done well, human. (pats Dib's shoulder) Thank you, for arousing ZIM!!! Now, (evil grin and hands rubbing together) to finish myself, I shall... (looks around imposingly, threating all with his gaze) ... I shall... GO BACK TO DOING WHAT WE WERE ORIGINALLY HERE FOR!!!! STUPID, EASILY-DISTRACTEDLY _HUMANS!!!_ THIS JUST _PROVES_ HOW AMAZING ZIM IS COMPARED TO YOU ALL!!! I- yes, human?” 

Dib's hand had been raised the entire time, waiting for Zim to breathe so he could butt in. Zim may have hated the school system as much as, if not more than, Dib had, but he had happily adapted this small figment of democracy. 

“Right, well... yes, we need to go back to wringing answers out of the Creator, but Zim... you were always amazing, even just on your own....” Dib blushes here and lowers his hand. “Always...”

Zim stared at the human, lekku perked to full length, eyes glassy, remembering. 

“Zim was... always amazing? Even when he...”

Dib reached out and took the alien's hand, a leap of faith to be sure. 

“Yes, even when you....” Dib twitched his neck muscles in sympathy. He could never imagine being watched so horribly closely for so long, and then to be forgotten! Exiled! (Well, he was exiled from the start, but he didn't know it, so it really wasn't exile, was it? Just abandonment.) Dib whimpered harder at that thought, clinging to Zim's arm in pain, felt all for the other, the alien, the enemy. 

Zim raised his non-existent eyebrows at the human's whimpering. He looked about. No one was hurting Dib- was he sick? 

A 3-fingered hand reached out and stroked back Dib's tears, his tall, scythe-lock of hair, searching. “Are you sickly, human? Something troubles you?” 

“Hmm? No, no, I'm not sick. Just... thinking.”

“Well, then stop. This 'thinking' is making you leak from the eyes, and when that happens, run away screaming! And Zim does not want to run away screaming. Zim wants to stay right here.” With his last sentence, Zim clutched and rubbed his face against Dib's arm, sticking his tongue out, slightly reminiscent of a cat. Dib smiled, hooked a thumb under Zim's chin and pulled his head up. Zim looked at him questioningly.

“I'll stop.. if you make me happy again.” Enter malicious grin.

“Okay!” Zim's head descended upon him from above, and Dib tilted his own up to meet it. Lips met lips and hands met hands and *ahem* crotch met crotch as Zim kissed and smoothed all worries away. Minutes later, Zim's head lay on top of Dib's, rolling back and forth to some long-forgotten lullaby, and Dib came up to place his forehead just under where Zim's nose would have been. Lekku perked, listening intently, and this was how only Zim heard the next words spoken by the human. “... I love you... Zim...” The human's hands dragged lightly down the back of Zim's smooth head as lekku fell. 

“Hmm? Something wrong, Zim? Well, obviously, but what?”

“.....”

“You can tell me. I'll listen.”

“.... I do not know... _how_ to love, as you so blatantly put it, human. Irkens do not feel such trivial emotions... do they?” This last question was almost addressed to the Creator. He would know. 

Being spoken to directly for the first time in almost a quarter-hour, Jhonen cleared his throat and opened his mouth to talk, just before his thunder was stolen by Dib, who had been stroking his hands absentmindedly down the other's chest. He looked up boldly. “...They do now.”

“Eh?”

“They do now. I say so, and you _have_ to listen to me. (pokes Zim's chest) I'm all you've got in this pitiful, doomed world, so... if you don't listen to me... who's gonna listen to you?”

Zim flattened his lekku and growled in annoyance. OH, how he HATED when the Dib was right! Stoopid _huu_ man and his _logic_! Oh, it irked him. Irked him to no end! Zim laughed lightly at that thought. Funny how humans already had a word for their eventual demise. 

“Zim?”

“Hmm? Yes, hyyuman... But.. _how_ am I to love? How does one go about approaching this thing? Can it be conquered, like Earth? Or simply observed, like you touchy-feely, horny humans?”

“Eh? Humans can be conquered, too, Zim. You conquered me long ago. I was always yours... but you belong to the stars. In love, Zim, each belongs to the other. Will you belong to me? Not to Irk, not to the Tallest, not even to Jhonen over there-” Everyone suddenly stares at JV, who grins and laughs weakly, “-but to me? I would stop belonging to Earth, Zim... I'd stop fighting for it... for you.”

“Ha! I can make no such promises, human! ... but there is enough of Zim to go around. I suppose I could stand being owned by one more human, hmm? That good enough for Dib?” There was a huge grin on Zim's face that betrayed the fact that he was lying. He was very willing to give up the fight for this stupid planet and just _live_ on it... better still, with Dib! 

Dib, sensing the lie in the smile, grinned back. “Yes... I think I could stand that...” and his hands went up and the hot alien mouth came back to his own, moving with an intensified passion, a truly scientific one; to learn, to know, what love really seemed to be. Belonging.

~~~~~~~~~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *lekku is a fan term for the Irken antennae I adopted from the authors of the incredibly long and angsty ZADR fic "Rilzit" that I first read on Deviantart over 10 years ago, Neofox and Kitteh. I have no idea if their pages are still up, nor how they are doing, but I hope they are well. That fic had an outsized effect on how I wrote ZADR ever since I read it. At far too young an age to adequately process the angst. But! That's what happens when you grow up on the Internet!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't leave Happy Noodle Boy to his own devices. Not when he is carrying a box of what are probably chickens.

Happy Noodle Boy was the first to be bored with the constant making out. He set down his chicken box, and every single one, as it encountered the floor, shut their beaks, quit chattering, and the room was quiet for the first time in hours. Everyone turned to the silent box and the sketchy character. Even the xeno pair sensed the shift in tension, and broke apart, each heading resignedly for opposite corners of the room. 

The Creator stared. The box didn't do _that_ when he designed it. The tension could be cut with a knife. And, being that kind of person, Nny tried to, but Devi convinced him he looked ridiculous doing it. Then there came a whining. A whining so great and horrible, even the Creator couldn't have imagined it. It grew in intensity, until it could actually be heard, piercing everybody's ears with its shrillness. Suddenly, the sound dropped off, moving out of hearing range again. This, somehow, was even _more_ unsettling than hearing the actual _noise._

Of course, Zim, with his super-sensitive lekku, heard every note, every pitch, every tone, and it was pure agony. Even when Dib had chased him in 6th grade with a piece of glass, scratching a rusty old nail down it, that hadn't hurt this bad. The invader's hands were crushed against his head, teeth grinding together, eyes screwed up, all of him twitching in utter pain. Dib's brows knotted, he bit his lip; Zim was in so much pain! But the universally agreed-upon laws of the universe stated that they couldn't come back together for at least 10 minutes after making out. Damn those rules, thought up by a panel of insensible, dreary old men who probably forgot 40 years ago what it was like to feel another's pain. Damn 'em!

Of a sudden, Zim stopped twitching. He just... stopped. He didn't move from the half-fetal position, with one leg up in the air, but his hands relaxed on his head, and his face smoothed over, but he didn't open his eyes. He frowned, took his hands away and opened his eyes. Dib gasped. They were a convoluted shade of purple, as if a splattering of blue had been poured into them by the noise. Zim shook his head to clear it, then held a hand to his face. He studied it for minute, then jumped, as if seeing a reflection in his palm. 

“Computer!! Reactivate!”

“Subject currently activated. Command not processed.”

“Rrraaah!!! Then _de_ activate, you horrible, meat-headed COMPUUTAH!!”

“(big sigh) Fine, Zim!”

Bolts of electricity shot from the PAK on the Irken's back, and he was shot a few feet into the air, then landed, smoking, very much a dead Irken.

“Zim!!” Dib screamed this time, running to the fallen alien. He had seen Zim do this once or twice before, and he knew there was a button to push... on the inside of the PAK.... (grunts, gets it open) that'd.... reactivate him.... There!

More electricity, more sparks; the human's hands were blackened by the smoke and the electricity's harnessed fire, yet he didn't move.

Zim rolled over, chest leaning up over the round PAK beneath him. The invader's eyes snapped open, the first thing they saw, truly recognized was the human. A twisted grin of thanks came from the invader as the human helped him up. The two stood side-by-side, Zim happily and obviously taller.

“NOW.....” said Zim in the scariest voice he could muster, “WHOO is responsible for that horrid noise I just heard? Whose fault is it that Zim had to _kill_ himself to get his very precious HEARING back?! What on IRK screwed my PAK up so badly?? ....YOU!!! I knew it!! I knew it was you!!!”

Happy Noodle Boy had snatched his box of chickens off the floor and was now cowering behind it, shrinking behind the box, wanting it to protect him, but nothing can protect you from an angry Irken on the warpath. _Nothing._

And most certainly not a rubber platypus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all he wrote! Anyone is free to add to this crack-verse as they please. Will the characters ever get their answers from Jhonen? Will Jhonen ever get his life back? Or is he straight-up dead now? Will I ever write a het romance scene??? We'll just have to wait and see!


End file.
